Significantly, there is no easy out if California decides the program is flawed because of national agreements implementing the requirements, he said.

“As we get into this bed and start using the national test and find objections, there’s no way to change it,” said Wurman.

Sen. Alan Lowenthal, a Long Beach Democrat and chairman of the Education Committee, says the new approach to testing will have lasting value.

“It’s going to move us away from teaching to fill in a little bubble with a No. 2 pencil,” he said. “Kids are going to learn much more how to problem solve. It’s changing how we learn as much as what we learn.”

Timeline

Ongoing: Districts across the state have started training teachers to bring the new concepts to the classroom and are looking to adopt supplemental materials. The statewide tests are now being drafted.

Fall 2012/spring 2013: Materials and other implementation strategies, called “frameworks” are to be ready.

School year 2013-14: The transition begins, but the actual process is left up to each district. Some districts have already started introducing new curriculum.

School year 2014-15: Teachers should be using lesson plans based on the new standards by now. That’s because the first round of English-language Arts and math tests will be administered in this school year.

Looking back — and ahead

The new program is called “common core” for a reason. It was put together by the National Governor’s Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. California adopted the plan in 2010.

The underlying premise is to have common, uniform national standards so that students who move from state to state are not penalized by having to comply with different expectations. Nearly every state has adopted the plan.

States were allowed to tailor some of the compact to individual need as long as 85 percent of the standards remained consistent with national goals.

“This isn’t the feds pushing curriculum down our throats,” said Bob Wells, executive director of the Association of California School Administrators.

The push was not done without controversy. California was under some pressure to move quickly as part of its application for federal “Race to the Top” money, but it was later rejected.

A number of educators protested, claiming states would be giving up a large measure of local control. Others say the standards were suspect and cost too much.

Supporters countered that schools and districts retain leeway over how to introduce the standards into the classroom and which materials to use. The standards, those who back them argued, will better reflect what students must know and understand going into college or the workforce in a global economy.

These will be the first revisions in nearly 20 years.

“The current standards have gotten high marks. But the world has changed,” Wells said. “If you talk to employers, they’re going to tell you they are not looking for people who can recite the multiplication tables or answer correctly on a multiple choice test. They need people who can think.”